Men in a van

[alphamummy]

I'm unsure why this bothered me so much, i'm not upset more annoyed that it happened.

Sorry i'll explain, i was walking on main road to playgroup 10am ish, with my 2 children in double buggy. I was dressed in jeans, winter coat and walking boots( not that it should matter at all what i had on). A van drove passed me pipped their horn and the driver shouted out of the window at me " fat split arse" and the bloke in the back also shouted "show us your fanny".

Why would you behave like that? I had my children with me.

I think its the fact that they pipped to get my attention to shout abuse at me.

I cannot believe what that security guard said. I just can't get my head round it.

Someone saying they are going to rape you is paying you a compliment? [boggle]

Well, the next really cute bloke I encounter, I will stick a cucumber up his arse and see if he wants to go out with me

What is WRONG with these men?

I can't help but wonder if their mum or their wife came home and said "A man leaned out of his van window and called me a whore today" whether they'd be happy about that, think it was nothing or whether they'd be angry?

i am seething reading some of these posts. absoloutely seething.

comealongand gwendoline i am so so sorry that this happened to you and that it still affects you.

what makes me even angrier is to read posts like glamour's that basically tell you that what you are feeling now, 3 years after, is an over reaction and that it wasn't a big deal at all what happened to you.

glamour where is your self respect that you condone anyone treating you like a vagina on legs? have you educated yourself and worked hard all your life to be acknowledged only as an oriface for a man to use for his own pleasure and call you whatever names he chooses whilst he does so?

Gwendoline, he probably died of a massive stress induced heart attack a few weeks later. You don't go round seething like that and for it not to take its toll

i dont remember saying that she was over-reacting nor did i say that i condone being treating as a vagina on legs.

all im saying is im not usually offended by your run of the mill white van man. thats all its my opinion! it would take more than a pervy man to make me lose self respect!

Gwendoline, thank you for sharing what you posted.

Several years ago, in a crowded cafeteria, a man shouted out "She is fucking ugly, isn't she?" in my direction.

It was a 95% male environment and reading this thread has brought back all kinds of unpleasant memories and

If I'd had the confidence then that I have now, there are so many times I would have answered back and not cowered when I was being verbally abused with sexist crap.

This was in a work/training environment, but I felt as vulnerable as if it had happened on the street or a public place.

It's got nothing to do with making people lose their self respect glamour. Women who get angry about this stuff maybe have more self respect and that's why they react so strongly when they are treated like this.

If you have daughters will you tell them "there's nothing you can do about it" and "don't read too much into it" when they have explicit comments shouted at them?

This behaviour is not good enough and people should talk about it and think how it can be changed, rather than just accepting that having abuse shouted at them when they walk down the road just because they are female is an inevitable part of life.

If this happens to me, it doesn't upset me (although I haven't had anything near as bad as 'we're going to rape you'). It just makes me think 'God, you're common'.

Is it worse to be a misogynist than a snob??

People who aren't women but are disabled/disfigured/black/wearing the wrong things also get a lot of stuff shouted at them. I can only feel scorn at what kind of loser you must have to be to get your validation from doing things like that.

i said that i would be just as upset as she is, i said that in two posts!

it has nothing to do with me having no self respect thank you very much, its just that usually i dont find whit van men to be insulting

and no i dont mind a wolf whistle!

considering this is on a feminist thread i thought that it would be more open to women having their own opinions and not saying they have less self respect then they should have because they dont let comments by pathetic men get them down.

but can i just add that i would be just as upset as she is if them comments were said to me when i had my children, thats the 3rd time ive said that now i think

Glamour I'm not trying to have a go I promise!

I just think that advising someone that this stuff happens and there's nothing you can do about it, and I suppose that women should learn to shrug it off and not react/talk about it/post on the internet is rather defeatist. I hate this sort of thing, I hated it when I was a teenager, I hated it when I grew up, and I hate that my daughters will have to put up with it too. That's got nothing to do with lacking self respect and everything to do with trying to make the outside world a more comfortable place for women.

I get that you would have been upset too

And the problem isn't the way women react, whether they should get angry or upset or ignore or not let it get to them and whether it indicates too much self esteem or not enough or no sense of humour or whatever... The problem is that some men do this in the first place and it is considered to be an acceptable way to behave in our society when it just isn't (and a lot of the time is illegal)

Let's not look at the behaviour of the people who have been victims of this - whether they over-reacted or shouted back or whatever - and let's look at the shitty behaviour of the men who do this.

Sue it is far far worse to be a misogynist

And you are right that people in a minority position all attract this type of behaviour.

Can I share a more positive story after sharing a negative one?

I was getting a lift from a friend a couple of years ago. He was getting the car from up the street (North London). As I walked out of the house a group of about 5 young men walked up the street. They were 18-20 hoodieish types iyswim :) .

As they passed me one of them said 'Sexy lady!' and his mates laughed and whistled. I felt pretty intimidated but then I thought 'No fuck that' so I turned around and said 'how would you feel about someone speaking to your mother or sister like that?'.

The guy who had spoken to ne got defensive and started quite aggressively saying, 'did I disrespect you? Eh? Did I disrespect you?' and I said (very calmly - I am proud of this story - can you tell? :) ) 'you may not mean to but it's about how I feel when you speak to me like that in the street and, yes, I feel disrespected' to which Mr Big Man mumbled 'OK - well sorry then'. I was so pleased. Especially that I didn't get punched really.

As I got in the car my mate looked at me and said 'Well someone's got balls' - not sure about that comment tbh!

Don't know what this is illustrating really except how pleased I am with myself

And the problem isn't the way women react...The problem is that some men do this in the first place and it is considered to be an acceptable way to behave in our society when it just isn't

Sardine Yes, I agree.

Referring to my story earlier, any kind of response I could have given to this man calling me ugly would not have changed the fact that dozens of other men witnessed it, many laughed and most just sat silent and did nothing.

I don't feel like I'm being very articulate (lack of sleep!) I think what I'm trying to say is, when men do not challenge the behaviour of other men, they become complicit and it reinforces the idea that it's ok to treat women this way.

A colleague did say to me much later that he was really sorry for not intervening at the time. So why didn't he? :(

Unruly Good on you :)

Alphamummy I hope you're feeling better soon. I would have felt humiliated as well. The bastards!

I haven't had any men call out at me from cars for years, probably because I'm not what that type of man would consider attractive anymore. I'm glad about that!

I used to hate it when I was younger. Especially when you had to walk past a car that was stationary in traffic. You'd see them leering at you and you'd know they were going to start calling and you'd have to try to ignore them whilst your face was burning up with embarrassment.

I've never had anyone 'call' anything nasty from a car before, but a group of 'men' threw an egg at me from a moving car once. It hit me on the leg and caused a huge bruise. I didn't tell anyone because I felt ashamed, as if they were making a statement about me. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense now. I did also feel grateful that they didn't throw it at my head because then I couldn't have pretended it hadn't have happened I suppose.

SQ, I agree totally with your post at 17:04 yesterday.

:o and Unruly, well I think it's a great story and I'll try to do the same.

The things that these men shout are vile - I'm not sure many men (whether they would ever shout out like that or would rather die than do so) really get the level of overt violent threat that is contained in those comments. Even if it never gets to the "we're going to rape you" stage (and :( for you Pond), that's the not-at-all-well-hidden subtext to behaving like this.

The very fact that there's "nothing we can do about it" is where the rapeyness lies - basically they can dominate and humiliate us in a public space because we have female bodies, and everyone will stand by and ignore/congratulate/excuse. :(

Thanks for this thread btw, really helped me think about this in a more exact and less RAGE RAGE type way.

I think in some situations, maybe the best response might be:

"Why did you say that?"

Agreed.

That's awful, FamilyCircus.

I mentioned it to my policeman friend (who is no longer a friend) this morning. "Oh," he said, "Just ignore it. It's just boys having a bit of fun."

"No, you don't understand," I explained, "They weren't 'boys', they were my age," (20/21, and it wouldn't have been okay even if they were younger, but hey) "and they actually said they were going to rape me."

"Yes but they weren't actually going to, were they? It's just boys being boys."

No it isn't. It's men sexually harassing someone, then insulting and swearing at them and being verbally abusive, then threatening to rape them. He's a policeman ffs.

and FFS at your policeman friend comealongpond.

I wish this stuff were taken seriously and if someone did this you knew that you could report them and they'd have a police officer wanting a word. Because then they might think twice. How is it that it's considered not a problem for half of the population to be subjected to this. I have always hated it, and IMO that is a perfectly normal reaction.

AnnVeronica, that was disgusting whatthat coward said to you. It sounds like he was threatened by you being a woman in this 95% male environment. The other men probably didn't join in to stand up for you because they didn't want to create a scene. Most people are like that. There are only a few brave people like Supergran who bashed the jewellery store robbers. Some of the other men probably laughed out of nervousness. I doubt that most people are really as nasty as that coward.

If you had replied "you're a fucking nasty, inadequate coward", I think he would have shut up and all the other men would have agreed with you.

I hate it when this happens.

I got stopped by a policeman once for jumping a red light on my bike, and when challenged I explained that I had done it deliberately to put as much distance as possible between me and the van full of abusive wankers who had been harassing me for the previous mile.

The police were fairly supportive. They didn't charge me for jumping the light, and at least went through the motions of taking down the number of the van.

Oh that is awful alphamummy. Horrible things on here. It's being utterly powerless in the face of unwanted attention and abuse that is so frustrating, anger and sadness inducing.

Idiots.

Thank you Dittany and comealong. I have never told anyone before and I didn't even think about it until I started writing my post.

I was only 19 or so when it happened. I'd just finished my shift in a supermarket and I was wearing an ugly uniform. I was crossing the road to get the bus when they threw it. I felt utterly worthless; like a ridiculous fool in my stupid clothes with this splattered egg on floor, like it had fallen out of my skirt. I was so ashamed that I couldn't face the people at the bus stop so I walked all the home.

It was a shitty thing to do. Eggs are slimy and they stink. They also fucking hurt when they're hurled at you. I felt humiliated because that's exactly how they intended me to feel.

Each one of these stories here makes me feel bloody angry and hurt.

Comealong, your police officer pal makes me want to spit quite frankly.

That's horrible, FamilyCircus :( What tossers.

The police officer chap is no longer my pal. I can't be friends with someone who has that sort of attitude - it's not on, especially from a police officer, and somebody who is supposed to be a friend. It's a shame because I thought we were close (otherwise I wouldn't have told him) but seriously, it says a lot about the value he places on me as a person, doesn't it? Can't be friends with someone who thinks it's okay for people to be treated that way.